


A Spider Isn't Just for Christmas

by forensicleaf



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Gen, Kidnapped Peter Parker, Protective Peter Parker, Shock Collars, followed by a Christmas kidnapping, followed by more Christmas fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28314366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forensicleaf/pseuds/forensicleaf
Summary: The prickling across the back of his neck ups its intensity, and panic bursts like lightning through Peter’s veins. This isn’t just general unease now; it’s a warning. He spins on his heel, mouth forming anM,ready to shout for Morgan to stay where she is, for her to stay hidden.And his voice locks up in his throat.They are no longer alone in the clearing. More specifically, Morgan is no longer alone. She is pulled tight against a pair of combat-clad legs. A thick forearm holds her firmly across the shoulders and—There’s a gun pressed to the side of her head.~~In which a trip to pick out a Christmas tree leads to a very bad not good couple of days for Peter. (#stopPetergoingonfieldtrips2k21)
Relationships: Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 87
Kudos: 281
Collections: Irondad and Spiderson Secret Santa 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaybee988](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaybee988/gifts).



> For [kaybee988](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaybee988/pseuds/kaybee988) as part of the Irondad and Spiderson Secret Santa 2020 fic exchange. Kayleigh, I hope you like this! I took your prompts as kind of a pick and mix, so please have: Peter and Morgan interactions; protective Peter; kidnapped Peter; and a little bit of whump :D
> 
> Merry Christmas!!! I hope you have a day that's as lovely as you!

“Mo, here. What about this one?”

The pine tree Peter stops next to is no different to the others he’s pointed out over the past hour and a half—just as tall and green and full, its spindles tipped white with the late afternoon frost—but something about it tells him it might just finally be the one. Then again, maybe that’s just wishful thinking on account of the growing lack of feeling in his toes. 

At his side, Morgan purses her lips, frowning up at the tree and giving it far more scrutiny than is probably fair. “Nope. It’s too wonky,” she decides after careful contemplation and turns to bound ahead to the next contender. Peter catches her by the hood of her coat, spinning her back round as he squints at the current tree, almost offended on its behalf. 

“What? No, it’s not. It just looks that way from where you’re standing. Trust me. I’m taller, so I can see better.” Morgan casts a dubious glance his way. Peter throws his own look back. “C’mon, Mo. Would I lie to you?”

“Last week you said chocolate milk came from brown cows. _That_ was a lie.”

“Ah. Well yeah, but that was— okay, yeah, that’s fair, I guess. But I wouldn’t lie about anything important. Not about a Christmas tree. So.” He sweeps his arm out once more to the one in front of them.

"No."

"No? Really?"

Morgan huffs, sagging into his side and latching onto his arm, where she hangs like a heavy little monkey in a pink puffer jacket. “Peter." She drags his name out, a testament to her suffering. "I said I don't like it, already. Come on, let’s look at the next one, okay? Come on, come on, come on. Please.” 

Peter shakes his head but lets himself be dragged all the same. “Okay, okay. But you’re gonna have to like one of them eventually, or we’re gonna go home empty handed. I’m pretty sure this place is closing soon.”

“Then we can come back tomorrow,” says Morgan, letting go of his hand to skip ahead. “And the next day and the next day and the next day. It has to be _perfect_ .” She throws her arms out dramatically to emphasise this, and Peter can’t help but grin. There’s a whole lot of pressure out there for the holidays to be _just right_ this year, a desperate need to celebrate with gusto after five years of grief and misery and absence of cheer. The world is trying its hardest to act as if nothing ever happened, and in doing so is only succeeding in drawing attention to the big purple elephant in the room. All Peter sees in the frantic eyes of every person queuing round the block for a store or desperate social media post appealing for a hard-to-find item are reminders of what the world is trying to overcome. All he senses in the fights he’s had to break up in the city over who was waiting for the parking space first, or who had hold of the last toy is grief. In light of all that, he’s glad to see that Morgan’s quest to find the perfect tree, at least, stems from pure enthusiasm.

“Whichever one you pick will be perfect,” he says as they weave between trunks. He points to a particularly majestic pine, but Morgan shakes her head, _no._ “You know that, right?” 

“I know. That’s what dad said, too.”

“Yeah? Well, your dad’s a smart man.”

“No.” Morgan rubs a mittened hand over her nose, now flushed red with the cold. “He’s _silly_ . He tried to feed Gerald carrots, and Gerald _hates_ carrots. Everyone knows that.”

Peter nods sagely. “You’re right, that is silly.”

“Exactly. And he had to ask for my help with my legos ‘cause he didn’t know you have to use the big ones at the bottom of the house if you want it all to stay together. That’s like, the first rule of Lego.”

Peter has to stifle a laugh at the thought of Tony Stark, the man who built a super suit out of scraps in a cave pretending not to understand how to build a lego house, but he isn’t all that surprised. Tony’s pulled the same trick on him more than a few times in the workshop, albeit with circuitry and mechanisms rather than colourful plastic blocks. _Where does this piece go, Pete? How does this fit together? T hat part connect here, or here? _“He didn’t, huh? guess you must be the smart one in the family, then.”

Morgan shrugs. “Yeah. That’s what mom says.”

They carry on through the lot, stopping intermittently to scrutinise the trees that seem particularly promising, though these are few and far between. That one is too short, this one isn’t green enough, this one looks sad, whatever that means. Morgan seems unfazed by the chill that creeps in quicker by the minute, but Peter finds himself tucking his hands under his arms and burrowing down into the warm collar of his jacket as they march on, trying to decide whether it’s particularly icy this December, or if he’s just gotten more sensitive to it all. He can’t remember much liking the cold before getting bitten, though growing up in New York he’s sure he must have been somewhat used to it. These past few years, however, he’s begun to hate it, and the steady drop of temperature as he and Morgan trudge through ankle deep snow is beginning to push the limits of his endurance. 

His breath fogs in front of his face as he looks up at the sky, at the indigo creeping in to the east as the sun sinks below the horizon opposite. They’ve been here longer than he intended, though he probably should have guessed from what he knows of Morgan’s decision making skills (or lack thereof) and her inherited stubbornness that they’d be here for the duration. Either way, it’s getting late, Peter’s freezing, and it’s clear to him at least that they’re not going to find their tree today. Time to call it.

“Okay, Mo, moment of truth. Any of these you like?”

“No,” Morgan says, shoulders slumped. “Maybe there’s better ones over there, though?”

Peter shakes his head. “Uh-uh, sorry, not today. It’s late, and your mom and dad are going to want us back soon. Besides, look, your nose is getting all cold.” 

Morgan endures his boop to said nose with an adorable scowl. “I’m not cold,” she says. 

“Who’s lying now, huh?”

“ _Please_ , Peter? It’s not that late. Plus there’s all these we haven’t looked at yet!”

Her eyes are big and round and Peter almost, _almost_ gives in. But now that the seed of heading home has been planted and they’re no longer distracted by looking at trees, he realises just how far they’ve wandered from the entrance. He can’t even see the string of multi-coloured lights that decorate the welcome archway anymore. He realises too that it’s been a while since they’ve seen any other customers browsing the lot, either, and between one moment and the next, the place suddenly feels altogether too quiet.

“They’ll still be here tomorrow,” he says, brushing off the flicker of unease that sweeps through him. “We can come back and look then, okay? Here, c’mon.” 

He reaches down to clasp Morgan’s mittened hand in his own. Thinking of warmth, and the copious amounts of blankets and cocoa waiting for them back at the cabin, and decidedly _not_ thinking about the creepy figures the trees are starting to cast in the twilight, he pulls her gently in the direction of the car. Morgan grumbles about leaving and drags her feet, but the promise of another re-watch of Frozen II soon puts that to bed. Together, they start the trek back to the road. 

Peter’s just slipped his phone back into his pocket from firing off a quick text to Tony— _On the way back now. No tree :(((—_ when Morgan suddenly puts on the brakes beside him. Peter stops, instantly alert. He looks down at her, at the trees, back at her. “What? What is it?” 

He doesn’t catch her answer, mumbled as it is beneath the fabric of her scarf. 

“What?”

“I need to pee.”

Peter blinks. Relaxes. “Oh.” And then he realises the problem. He looks around. Trees. Nothing but trees everywhere. “Uh...I don’t think there’s any bathrooms around here, Mo. Do you think you can hold it til we get home?”

Morgan puffs out her ruddy pink cheeks, shaking her head. The bobble on top of her hat wiggles wildly with the motion. She won’t meet his eyes. 

“Hey, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it. You gotta go, you gotta go, right?” Where, though, is the issue. “Umm. How about behind that tree there? Quick though, Mo, we want to get going before it’s dark.” 

Morgan nods and hurries off behind the tree. Peter shifts just enough that he can still see a sliver of pink coat through the branches in his periphery. There’s a moment or two of rustling, and then silence. 

“You have to turn around,” comes a small voice from behind the tree. 

Peter’s face flushes. “I’m not— I’m not _watching._ I’m just making sure you’re okay.”

“Turn around!”

He blows out a breath. Fog curls up into the air as he turns to face the other way. “Fine. There. Okay?”

There’s no response. No telltale sound of tinkling, either.

“Morgan?”

“You’re too close,” 

“Morgan, come on.”

“ _Peter._ ”

Trying not to let his frustration show, Peter takes a half dozen steps away from the bush. It wouldn’t make any difference if he took a hundred with his hearing, but Morgan doesn’t know that, and he isn’t going to tell her. 

He stands there, blowing tepid air into his cupped palms and humming All I Want for Christmas under his breath out of courtesy while he waits for her to be done. It might be an old song, but it’s a classic for a reason, and he and MJ had watched Love Actually the other night (although ‘watch’ is a loose term—they’d spent most of the film cringing over all the problematic parts that really haven’t aged well) so the tune’s stuck in his head. 

“Are you finished?” he asks when a long enough time seems to have passed without Morgan returning. Longer than he’d have thought it would take for a little girl to pee, but what does he know? 

No answer comes. Without his humming the clearing is deathly quiet, snow glinting on the ground in the half-light of dusk. 

Peter’s neck prickles. 

“Morgan? Quit messing around, all right? We really have to go.”

Silence.

“Mo?”

The prickling across the back of his neck ups its intensity, and panic bursts like lightning through Peter’s veins. This isn’t just general unease now; it’s a warning. He spins on his heel, mouth forming an _M,_ ready to shout for Morgan to stay where she is, for her to stay hidden.

And his voice locks up in his throat.

They are no longer alone in the clearing. More specifically, _Morgan_ is no longer alone. She is pulled tight against a pair of combat-clad legs. A thick forearm holds her firmly across the shoulders and—

There’s a gun pressed to the side of her head. 

For a handful of seconds, Peter’s brain is nothing but white noise, static screaming through his skull. And then the adrenaline kicks in. 

“Morgan. Morgan, hey. Look at me. It’s going to be okay, all right? Nothing’s going to happen to you, I promise.” 

He shifts his attention from Morgan’s bone white face to the man standing behind her, eyes widening as he takes in the sheer size of him. He’s huge, dressed like special ops of some kind, and maybe he is. The way he holds both himself and the gun speaks of training and discipline, not to mention that he managed to get the drop on Peter’s inbuilt warning system—something that Peter has no time to be furious at himself about right now, but will be later. 

“What do you want?”

“Peter Parker?” The man’s voice is gravelly, his speech accented, though Peter can’t pinpoint its origin. 

“Yeah?” he answers without thinking, thrown off for a second at being addressed by name. Things like this are usually (and he hates that that’s a word he can use to refer to this kind of situation) a result of something related to Tony. A disgruntled ex-employee, maybe. Someone with an unfair bone to pick with Iron Man. A chancer hoping to make some quick cash off a billionaire. Somewhere under his panic, Peter had already assumed this was much of the same—that Morgan was the target here, for ransom or something. But it seems like he’s misjudged. 

The man nods once, satisfied by the confirmation. He shifts his gun into his other hand, careful not to loosen his grip on Morgan, then reaches into his jacket pocket. The item he withdraws gets tossed onto the ground in front of Peter and Peter glances down at it quickly; back up again as the gun changes hands once more, the barrel realigning with Morgan’s temple.

“Put it on.”

Peter blinks at the man, then reluctantly lets his eyes fall back to the object on the ground. It’s circular, a hoop slightly larger than a CD in diameter, and his brow furrows as he looks at it. What does the guy mean, put it on? Where? It’s too big to go around his wrist—it would just fall straight off, and—

It’s then that he sees the thin split in the metal, the concealed hinge on the opposite side of the circle, and realises what it is he’s actually looking at.

Not a bracelet.

A collar. 

Dread curls through his stomach, as dull and as heavy as the fear that spikes in his veins is sharp, because he knows, without asking, exactly what kind of collar this is, and he knows, without asking, exactly what it does, too. Wanda had warned him with haunted eyes; May had warned him with fearful, pleading ones. _Don’t get caught. Don’t let them take you in. Look what they do to mutants. Look what they would do to you._

He doesn’t move, only raises his eyes to meet the man’s. “Why?”

“Because I am holding a gun to this little girl’s head, and I told you to. Now, put it on.”

Peter looks at Morgan, who looks right back, her eyes huge in her blanched face. He swallows. “What’s going to happen if I do?”

“I would be more concerned about what’s going to happen if you don’t.”

The slip of the man's index finger into the trigger guard is enough to send ice through Peter’s veins, to pull him forward a few panicked steps. He doesn’t reach for the collar, though. He can’t. Never mind his own fears, if he puts it on he knows he’s essentially rendering both himself _and_ Morgan defenceless, and the latter is something he can’t allow. He would be powerless to stop anything that came after. Who knows what could happen to her then? 

He lets his eyes slide in the direction of the road, trying to calculate how far they are from the entrance now, how far they would need to run, but his brain won’t move past the pounding beat of _dangerdangerdanger_ screaming in his skull. His phone is a heavy weight in his back pocket, all but useless for how close it is. He doesn’t have his web shooters but he’s fast, and he’s strong. Maybe—

“I can see you thinking,” says the man. “Let me assure you I am a very quick shot. You will not make it in time.” Slowly, almost gently, he pushes the gun harder into Morgan’s temple, forcing her head to the side. Her lower lip trembles. Fat tears cling like dew to her lashes, threatening to spill. She whimpers, barely audible, and the naked terror in the small sound is a spear straight through Peter’s heart.

“Okay. Okay I get it, just— Look, please, she doesn’t need to be involved in this. Just let her go.”

“I don’t think so. She is a very useful shield. Helps me to complete my job. Now.” The man nods to the floor. To the collar. “Put it on.”

Peter can hear Morgan’s heart fluttering hummingbird fast against the fragile cage of her ribs, an echo of his own, thundering in his chest. He doesn’t know what to _do_ , and he must hesitate a fraction of a second too long, because the man growls in frustration, the first real fissure in his calm facade. “Nothing is more important to me than being paid, do you understand me? I will paint the ground with this little girl’s brains and think nothing of it if that is what it takes!” He punctuates his words by giving Morgan a harsh shake. She yelps, and then she starts to cry.

“Okay!” Peter jerks forward, throwing his hands out in front of him. Morgan’s stifled sobs cut right through to his core. There are no options here. He has no choice. With shaking hands he crouches down and picks the collar up off the ground. “Okay, just _please_ , please don’t hurt her.”

The man’s eyes narrow. “Put it on.”

Peter nods. The collar is freezing in his hands, the metal dragging in the chill of the air around it. It’s heavy, too, which seems fitting, considering the weight of dread it instils. He swallows thickly as he pulls the contraption open, the two halves of metal parting like a yawning jaw, priming for its prey. 

Every instinct flares against him as he lifts the collar to his neck. All except one. He keeps his eyes on Morgan, trying to convey to her that it’s going to be okay, that he’s okay, even though his hands are trembling with a cold rush of terror. Blood pounds under his skin. His bones thrum in warning. There’s a sharp mechanical beep as the jaw snaps shut around his throat, and then—

When Peter was first bitten by the spider, the transition had been gradual. He’d hardly had any reaction at all in the immediate aftermath, save for a clipped, “Ow,” and it wasn’t until he got home from school that he had begun to feel feverish or unwell, and even that had been mild. He’d slept fitfully that night—vivid dreams interspersed with somewhat-delirious periods of wakefulness—and when he’d awoken, it had been in a body that, while foreign to him in its strength and sensitivity, somehow still felt adjusted, right.

This by contrast is so quick and sudden that despite being stationary, he stumbles, dropping to his knees in the snow. He gasps as everything that makes him Spider-man—all the abilities and enhancements he’s come to rely on over the past two years—comes flooding out of him in one great rush. He feels weak, like a newborn colt struggling to stand; he can’t see more than blurry shapes; his lungs ache when they drag in the frigid winter air. It feels _wrong._

“Peter!” he hears Morgan call distantly, high and sharp and scared. It sounds like she’s underwater, or like he is. Everything is dulled. Grey.

His palms are pressed flat to the ground, his trembling arms the only thing bracing him from planting his face straight into it. He takes a few shallow, steadying breaths, and then with a monumental effort, he raises his head. Squints. “‘m okay, Mo. It’s okay,” he says to her cloudy outline. Then to the guy’s similarly murky shape, “I did what you wanted. Now let... let her go.”

“Gladly,” the man responds with a shrug. He shoves Morgan away from him, where she lands hard on her side in the snow. The gun swings from pointing in her direction to pointing in Peter’s, though the man holds it loosely in his hand now, lazy with the reassurance that Peter is no longer a physical threat. His other hand goes to his pocket, and he draws out something small and black, the edges of which Peter can’t define through his blurred vision. Unlike the gun, this object, the man points toward him with purpose.

Peter has a brief moment of confusion, followed by one of startling realisation. He sways, trying to climb to his feet. “Wait,” he breathes, panicked. “Wait. Wait!”

The man pushes a button. There’s a warmth at Peter’s throat, a heady rush, and then everything around him dissolves into nothing. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm adding a couple of warnings for this chapter to be on the safe side. Please see end notes for details. Otherwise, enjoy!

Peter expects to wake up in the Raft. 

He does not. 

That he hasn’t been remanded to the most secure facility on the eastern seaboard with a whole host of inmates he personally helped put there brings Peter an immediate sense of relief. But it’s only fleeting. Wherever he _has_ been brought is still clearly a cell of sorts—barren, a singular bed, a partition concealing what looks like bathroom facilities, and a floor to ceiling plexiglass wall (complete with a keypad-operated steel door) which really just finishes the whole aesthetic off. A camera blinks at him from the upper corner.

There’s not a lot in this room to start with, but there is one thing that is immediately and conspicuously absent, and that is Morgan. _Where is Morgan?_ Worry twists in Peter’s gut as images flash through his mind: the nonchalance of the man in the lot while he threatened her, the gun pressed close to her tiny skull, the fear in her eyes. _What if…_

But no. Whoever is pulling the strings here hadn’t been interested in Morgan besides using her to get to him. The last Peter saw of her was a pink winter coat and dark hair thrown against the snow—discarded, but unharmed. _Alive_. Once she was no longer useful she hadn’t even been spared a glance. He has to hope that the same remained true after he was out of the picture. He doesn’t know how to handle the alternative. 

Wooziness still clings to his brain as he sits on the edge of the bed. His vision remains unresolved, a hazy outline to everything he sees that makes him feel vaguely nauseous. His hearing and strength remain dulled too, the damned collar that’s still locked around his throat choking him in more ways than one. It sits heavy on his neck, and when he reaches up to probe at it for weaknesses it gives him a little _zap_ —nothing more painful than a static shock, but enough to make him jolt and drop his hands with a bitten off curse. 

God. He is so screwed. 

The only upside is that he isn’t also made to wait to find out who has him here and why. Within minutes a heavy thunk from outside his confines has his head whipping up. He blinks away the black splotches that crowd his eyes at the sudden movement, looking to the clear wall. Beyond it is another wall with a secondary steel door, creating a sort of airlock between his cage and the rest of whatever this place is. It’s this outer door which opens now. Through it steps a man—not the one who had ambushed him and Morgan at the lot, but rather, Peter must assume, his employer. He’s reasonably smart looking, somewhere in his mid forties, if Peter had to guess. Sandy blond hair and a slim build, he’s wearing a suit and one of those silly ties that looks more like a medallion with strings. And he’s smiling. 

“Well, hello! You’re finally awake!”

Peter climbs to his feet, but hangs back. His skin crawls at the sheer jubilation on the man’s face, and the jovial greeting only puts him more on edge. If there’s anything he’s learned since this kind of thing became an unfortunately common experience, it’s that the ones who start off friendly are usually the ones to most watch out for. They’re more difficult to predict, and they tend to hit the hardest when that friendly facade inevitably slips. If Peter was thinking clearly, he’d approach the situation with caution. But right now he’s too worked up to even consider treading lightly. All his focus is on one simple question. 

“Where is she?”

The man’s smile fades. His brows furrow. “Where is... who?”

“The little girl who was with me,” says Peter, hands curling into fists. “Where is she?”

The man blinks. Then he waves a hand through the air. “Oh. Her? She’s not here. Fine, though, not to worry. I have no interest in harming children.”

 _No interest in harming children?_ “Yeah? The gun your guy had to her head gave me kind of a different impression.”

“Ah.” A flicker of something that looks like actual regret flashes over the man’s face before it’s gone, plastered over by a businesslike smile. “Yes. I’ve been made aware of that. Dreadful stuff. Please be assured that wasn’t part of my instructions, and words have been had. I assure you the girl was left safely on the side of the road, you have my word. I’m not a monster.”

Peter pulls a face, glancing pointedly around at his confines. “Just a kidnapper, then.”

“Please, let’s not resort to name calling. Besides, we both know you’re not exactly a ‘kid’, are you” —the man grins, a flash of perfect white teeth— “Spider-man.”

Peter doesn’t flinch. “I’m not Spider-man,” he says, though it’s more out of defiance than any real attempt to convince this guy otherwise. That cat is well and truly out of the bag already. They came after him with a suppression collar. One of these on anyone non-enhanced, and they wouldn’t even be able to move. That Peter is up and about is proof enough already that he’s more than an average kid.

The man tsks. “Come now, let’s not play that game. It’s insulting. I’m well aware of who you are, and what you’re capable of. Hence the precautions.”

Here he gestures to the collar ringing Peter’s neck. Peter resists the urge to reach up and touch it again, discouraged less by the thought of another zap than he is by the idea of letting this guy know how much it’s bothering him, being tagged like a criminal, like an animal. He simply glares instead. “Right. Where’d you get this, huh? Bargain bin at Bad Guys ‘R’ Us?”

“Oh, I heard you were funny,” the man says with a laugh that’s far too jolly for the current situation. “No. Another acquisition of mine. Very difficult to procure, of course, but then, friends in high places and all that.” His cheerful facade fades. “I’d hate to have to use it.”

Somehow, Peter doubts that very much. 

“I’m a person,” he says, “not an _acquisition.”_ His stomach turns at the implication.

Again, though, the man simply laughs. “My dear boy, everything is, if you can afford it.”

“So, what,” Peter spits, ”I’m the newest addition to your creepy trophy case, is that it?”

“Of course not. Don’t be silly. You’re a gift.”

It takes everything Peter has not to recoil. “A… gift,” he echoes, voice hollow. This guy is kidding, right? Is he _insane?_

“A gift, yes. For my daughter, Emilia. My little angel. She was gone for five years when… well, you know, so I want her first Christmas back to be extra special. Make up for all the years she wasn’t here and all that. And what better way to do it than by bringing her her favourite hero! That’s you, in case you hadn’t figured it out.”

Peter states, dumbfounded. Here he was, thinking that the Macy’s riot was the worst the holiday madness was going to get this year, but no. This guy takes the cake. He grimaces. “You know they sell Spider-Man plushies at most bodegas in Queens? Pretty sure one of those would have been fine.”

“Ah, but why, when I can have the real thing?”

“Maybe because it’s nuts?” Peter says. “Come on, man, you gotta know this is crazy. You want to— to _give me as a present_ and then what? You can’t really think you can keep me here forever.”

The man cocks his head to the side. “You don’t seem to have escaped yet.”

Peter just glares. 

“Look.” A put upon sigh. “I really don’t want any of this to be unpleasant. I think you’ll find you can be quite comfortable here if you cooperate. As I said, I’m not a monster. And Emilia truly is a lovely girl—not much older than the one you were with last night, in fact. You’ll like her. I know it. Oh, and she’ll be so excited to see you climb the walls in real life, just for her.”

He pauses, observing Peter, and there’s something in his eyes that Peter really, really, doesn’t like.

“I must admit,” he goes on, “I’m not incurious, either. I’ve seen the videos, and what you can do really is extraordinary. I was wondering, might you show me? A demonstration, perhaps? Before the big day.”

Now, Peter can’t hide his recoil. Anger bubbles up hot and fast in his chest. “No. No way.”

“It’s a simple enough request.”

“Go to hell.”

A click of the tongue. “Peter—”

“ _Don't_. Don’t talk to me like you know me. You're crazy. You’re _sick_ , dude. I’m not doing shit for you or for your daughter. Forget it.”

With that, the man’s expression sours. “I see. Well, I would much prefer this to be an amenable relationship, but if you’re insistent otherwise you’ll find that there are many less pleasant ways to make a person do what you want.”

Peter almost laughs. Is that supposed to scare him? “Screw you,” he breathes, far too angry and disgusted to consider the predicament he’s in, to consider the collar currently rendering him powerless and the shock and sedation it’s capable of delivering straight into his skin. No, right now all he is thinking is that he’s taken on super-soldiers and aliens and monsters and every time emerged victorious, no matter what was thrown at him. This man is just a man, and a pathetic one at that. One who outsources his dirty work and thinks people are products. Let him do his worst.

But do his worst, the man does not. He doesn’t reach into his pocket for the remote Peter knows is there, nor threaten further or rage. In fact, he doesn’t do anything except regard Peter dispassionately a moment before turning on his heel and leaving.

Peter stares after him for a long time, waiting for the other shoe to drop, unsure what to do with himself when it doesn’t. He’s not getting zapped to within an inch of his life. He’s not been knocked out again. He’s just been left alone. 

It should be a relief. So why does he feel nothing but dread?

* * *

Several hours later, he figures it out. 

He passes the first one or two exploring every inch of his cell, looking for loose bolts or screws, running his fingers along the seams at all four corners of the room, tracing the outline of the steel door, scrutinising the keypad for any clue to the code that might unlock it. After that proves fruitless, there comes the pacing, followed by a cautious reexamination of the device around his neck, which is quickly abandoned when it discharges another burst of electricity. This time, the zap is strong enough to make his whole body jolt. 

Frustrated, and skin buzzing unpleasantly, Peter spends some more time pacing before making a second trip around his cage, searching for anything he might have missed on the first pass. He finds nothing. Nothing at all. 

Eventually he ends up on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and, with little else to occupy his mind, worrying. He worries about how he’s going to get out of this mess, he worries about what the man had meant by ‘less pleasant ways’, but more than either of those things, he worries about Morgan, and about whether what the man said is true, about whether she got back to Tony and Pepper safely, about whether she’s okay.

Thinking about her stranded on the side of the road in the dark and the cold, waiting for someone to find her sends a sick feeling through his stomach. Which is probably why he is slow to notice when said stomach starts rumbling. 

It’s just a little at first, barely enough to distract him from the anxious tumble of his thoughts, but soon enough it becomes insistent. Impossible to ignore. Peter casts a wary glance to the security camera blinking in the top corner of the room, then to the small, barred window on the other side of the dividing screen—his only method for measuring time. It’s still light out, but that light is obviously dimming. Early afternoon, then. Which means it’s almost twenty-four hours since he scarfed down that Bratwurst from the cart out the front of the tree farm. 

The beginnings of unease flicker through him.

Since gaining his abilities, Peter needs to eat a lot. Like a _lot,_ a lot. Frankly, he’s surprised it’s taken this long for his metabolism to catch up to him here, but now that it has he’s all too aware of the predicament he faces. If he wants to eat, he’s entirely reliant on the goodwill of his jailer, and after the way he’d snapped at him, Peter doubts there’s much of that going round. 

It becomes clear to him then what the man had meant by ‘less pleasant’ persuasion. And it’s clear as the sun slips out of the sky with no man and no food appearing, that this is only the beginning. 

The collar seems to suppress the worst of it all, dimming the full power of his super metabolism the same way it continues to dim his other abilities. But regardless of the effect it’s having, Peter is still a teenage boy. By the time darkness has fully taken hold outside, his stomach is twisting in on itself, sharp pangs of displeasure stabbing through his gut at unpredictable intervals that leave him clamping down on hushed sounds of misery. He gulps down a few mouthfuls of water from the sink in the bathroom, which does take the edge off for a while, but it ultimately does little to fill the persistent emptiness in his belly. In the end he can do nothing but lie down, arms folded over his midsection, and hope for the brief reprieve of sleep. 

The next day, when the morning passes with no movement from the door, it’s clear that the man means for this to continue. Water stops helping. It’s like Peter’s body realises his trickery, and now any attempt he makes to drink only makes him nauseous. He spends long hours on the bed with his knees pulled up, curled over the aching chasm of his stomach and merely clenching his teeth through every sharp stab of hunger. 

He refuses to say a word, refuses to even glance at the camera in the corner again. He knows now what this asshole is doing, and he’s not going to give him the satisfaction of begging. The man has to come back with food at some point whether Peter concedes to his game or not, otherwise he’s going to be presenting his ‘little angel’ with a very _dead_ Christmas present. Peter just has to play this twisted game of chicken a little longer, wait it out. 

By the time the day starts to draw to a close, though, his resolve on that front is wavering. He’s beginning to wonder if he’d misjudged his captor’s stubbornness, and perhaps been too foolish with his own—after all, he can hardly do a thing to help himself escape if he’s half dead with hunger, can he? He’s already feeling the effects, borderline crazed and unable to think of almost anything except the constant gnawing in his stomach after just two days. He feels ashamed to admit it to himself, but he knows that he won’t be able to hold out for another. 

Exhausted and in pain, he lies on the bed and tries to blink away the sting of reflexive tears that spring forward with every ruthless pang. He hates this. The situation, yes, but more so the feeling of vulnerability, unlike anything he’s had to contend with over the past two years. He’s been captured before, sure, but never like this. Never has he felt so utterly defenceless, and the worst thing is that he did this to himself. He surrendered willingly. 

No, not willingly, he reminds himself. To protect Morgan. _You protected Morgan._

He repeats it over and over like a mantra, letting it carry him through the storm. And even despite the shiftiness of the situation he’s landed in, he knows he’d do the same thing again. 

It had been a shock to come back from Titan to find that five years had passed in his absence, even more so to find a Tony Stark who had traded in the designer three-pieces and state of the art compounds for sweats and a cabin upstate, a Tony Stark who now had a kid. In the dissonance of those first days back, Peter hadn’t known how to compare with that, hadn't known where he might fit in this new changed dynamic, or if he even had a place there at all. But it turned out all his worry was for nothing. Despite five years of absence, the Starks had never made him feel like anything less than family; Morgan, never anything less than the big brother he’d never had the chance to be. He’s loved her like a sister since his first trip to the cabin when she had edged out from behind Pepper’s skirt, taken him by the hand and asked if he wanted to see her playhouse. He would do anything for her; he can do this. 

He’s startled out of his thoughts by the sudden thunk of a lock disengaging. 

The exterior door is opening. 

Half in surprise, half in desperation, Peter sits up. He makes to stand, but his head swims the moment he pushes himself upright, and it takes all his effort to focus on his visitor. 

It’s the man, and he’s holding something in his hand. _A plate,_ Peter realises as he squints at it. _Food._ His whole body aches at the thought. 

“I’m not aware of your dietary requirements, but I assumed peanut butter and jelly would be reasonably inoffensive,” the man says, holding the plate aloft. 

Peter has been feeling too weak since this morning to make the trip to the bathroom for water, but at the sight of the sandwich, his mouth still manages to flood in anticipation. He doesn’t move, though, merely watches the man with mistrustful eyes.

“You _are_ hungry, aren’t you?”

As if roused by the question, Peter’s stomach gives a violent twist. He digs his fingers into the mattress, cringing against the pain and against his own weakness in the face of it. He can’t bear it any longer, pride be damned. Hating this man and hating himself, he bites down on his lip, and nods. 

“I thought so,” the man says jovially. “Well, then. Here you are.” Again he holds the plate out towards Peter. And then he pulls it back, his smile turning saccharine. “But… uh… first. If you would be so kind.” 

_Of course_ , Peter thinks, empty stomach sinking into his shoes. Nothing comes for free. Not with guys like this. 

Slowly, painfully, he stands. His head spins, and he has to use the bed frame for support, but he manages to make it to one of the walls of his prison without dropping to the floor. It’s only once he’s there, palm splayed against the plexiglass, that he realises his dilemma. 

“I… I can’t.”

Silence stretches out, and Peter turns to look at the man, whose face has shifted to stone. “Very well,” he says, clipped, and then without another word he turns to go, taking the food with him. 

Panic seizes Peter in a vice. “No! No, wait!” He cringes at the desperation in his voice, but the words have the desired effect. The man stops. He turns to face Peter again, face cold, but expectant. “I… the collar,” Peter explains weakly. “I can’t do it with it on.”

For a moment the man’s face remains unchanged, and then he seems to realise what Peter is saying. “Oh!” he exclaims, and he even has the wherewithal to look embarrassed by his oversight. “Oh, of course.” He chuckles to himself as he pats down his pockets, looking for the remote. “How silly of me. Here.”

How simple, the act of pressing a button, and yet how monumental the effect. The collar around Peter’s neck emits a soft beep, he inhales sharply, and for the first time in days feels his lungs actually respond. Light and colour, sound and sensation come trickling back to him, like being bathed in a warm rain. His senses are nowhere near what they should be—the man is obviously being careful to allow him the bare minimum—but even this tiny amount is already so much more than he had before. Peter closes his eyes and lets himself bask in it for a heartbeat of a moment. When he opens them again, the man is watching him, waiting, and he remembers the reason he’s been permitted this in the first place.

Indignation swells up hot and fast under the man’s impatient gaze, but Peter clamps down on it, raises his hand, and presses his palm once more against the glass. He half hopes nothing will happen, that the man will be forced to relinquish a little more of the collar’s control if he wants this little performance. But as he pulls back slightly, he feels the familiar resistance beneath his fingertips. He’s too drained to pretend otherwise. 

_You’re just climbing a wall,_ he tells himself as his other hand joins the first, followed by his feet, one after the other. _You’ve done it a million times. Ignore him. Ignore why._

Oddly, it’s easy enough to do. For a few moments, Peter can forget that he’s being observed like a bug under a microscope, losing himself instead in the repetitive motion of climbing—something that comes so naturally to him now despite its inherent unnaturalness. Hand, then foot, then hand, then foot _,_ he makes his way up the wall with ease and confidence. Ease and confidence, that is, until the brief burst of energy fades, and the unavoidable effect of two days without food once again rears its ugly head. 

His hands start to shake. 

Peter stares at them, feeling all at once like he’s looking through a long tunnel, and even through the sudden dizziness that sweeps over him he recognises the signs of an imminent pass out. His body is running on nothing. He’s pushed himself too hard. 

The glass in front of him is cool where his forehead falls against it, his nose flaring as he breathes steadily, urging the black spots in front of his eyes to clear. When he’s sure he isn’t about to tip backwards into darkness, he carefully, slowly, starts to descend, pushing through the fog until his feet are planted on the relative safety of the ground once more. That will have to be enough of a show for now. He can’t manage anything else.

“Incredible,” his captor breathes, apparently satisfied with the performance. “Simply incredible.”

Peter says nothing. He doesn’t have the energy. He looks at the man with dull eyes. Then he looks at the sandwich.

The man follows his gaze. “Ah, right. Well yes, I did promise, didn’t I? Here.”

There is nothing but shame in Peter’s stomach as he watches the man lower the plate to the ground with hungry eyes, and yet it’s enough to give him the strength to resist descending on the meager offering like a wild animal the moment it’s pushed through the slot at the bottom of the door.

He picks it up with unsteady hands, holds it close to his chest, expecting the man to leave him then. But no, he remains on the other side of the door. When Peter meets his eyes he raises an eyebrow and clears his throat. A prompt. 

Peter’s knuckles turn white around the plate. He takes a breath. “Thank you,” he says, too tired, too humiliated, and too _hungry_ to put any real bite behind it. 

“You’re very welcome,” the man replies. “See, I know we could find a way to make this work.” The genuinely pleased smile that spreads across his face would make Peter throw up if his cavernous stomach had anything left to give. As it is, nothing rises within him but heat, kindling in his chest, in his cheeks, behind his eyes as he watches the man cheerfully stroll away, closing the outer door behind him with the _thunk_ of an engaging lock.

Alone, Peter takes his spoils and staggers back to the bed, where he sits with his back to the door and camera both so that he might too be alone with the angry, relieved tears that spill out onto his cheeks at the first bite of peanut butter and jelly. The sandwich is nowhere near enough to sate his hunger after days with nothing, and really, it isn’t even that good, but Peter savours every slow mouthful he takes, unsure of when he might receive his next meal, and unsure, too, of what he might have to _demonstrate_ next in order to get it.

 _Spider-man is not a party trick, okay,_ he remembers telling Ned all those years ago, but sitting here now, that’s exactly how he feels. If this guy had his way that’s all he would ever be, it seems—some curiosity to be dragged out for entertainment when the occasion calls for it, a personal circus act for the overly-wealthy and overly-entitled. It’s humiliating, infuriating, to have the things he’s capable of reduced such. It’s invalidating to all the good he’s done and all the good he’s still to do. Well, to hell with it. This guy might be happy to reduce Peter to his flashiest parts—to the flips and swings and gravity-defying climbs that always seem to pull in the big hits on Youtube—but Peter is far from content to be reduced to them. 

His anger simmers as he chews. A gathering storm with no outlet. He can do nothing to help himself. Tony must be looking for him by now, he’s sure, he _hopes,_ but he won't allow himself to rely on that. After all, what kind of hero sits around and waits to be rescued? 

The weight around his neck answers for him: _What choice do you have?_ Cut off from his abilities he’s as powerless as he ever was. He can’t rip the door off its hinges, he can't smash through the glass wall. God, he can barely even _see_. 

Except… 

With eyes clouded by tears, he hadn’t noticed, but now that the well has run dry, Peter is confused to realise he actually _can_. The hazy outline that has been clinging to everything since he awoke here is gone. His hearing is distinctly less muffled, too. 

It takes far too long for his calorie-deprived brain to connect the dots, but when it does, his heart starts to thump in his chest.

Carefully, making sure the bulk of his body is still blocking the camera’s line of sight, he touches his fingertips to the top of the plate, then removes the hand that’s supporting the underside. 

It hangs perfectly in place.

In the thrill that followed his coerced display, the man, Peter realises, has made a mistake. One which he will come to regret.

He forgot to reset the collar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for: trafficking(ish) themes; withholding of food and associated effects.
> 
> Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts! <3


	3. Chapter 3

Peter’s plan is this: he… well… he doesn’t have one. 

He likes to think he’s pretty savvy when it comes to schemes; he’s got a long list of them in his repertoire inspired by an equally long list of movies. Some of them are good, like jettisoning Squidward out of that ship a la Aliens, and some not so much (see the time he took the hours of Grey’s Anatomy he’d caught over May’s shoulder as training enough to stitch up a stab wound to his thigh. Spoiler: it wasn’t). The point is that he’s not lacking for ideas. The _problem_ is that there’s almost nothing for him to work with here.

It’s clear that the only way out of here is through the keypad activated, steel reinforced door. It’s also clear that said door is directly within sight of the camera blinking away in the corner. The only place in the room that isn’t covered by the camera is the spartan bathroom in the corner, shielded from prying eyes by a thin partition wall. _Small mercies,_ he thinks sitting within it, trying to gather his thoughts. 

Above him, the shower pipe sits precariously in its frame, warped, but still firmly attached. Peter rubs at the fatigued muscles of his arms and scowls up at it. It had taken almost all of his energy to bend it in the slightest, and by the time he had managed that he was sweating and breathing heavily and had needed to sit down for fear of passing out otherwise. It doesn’t bode well for an escape attempt.

The boost that realising the collar hadn’t been reset gave him has long expired, and he now has to face the bitter sting of reality: his strength might have partially returned but it isn’t enough, nowhere near it. Who was he kidding, to think he could have pulled a door off its hinges, anyway? Even if he were able to manage it, he wouldn’t have gotten much further. Not once whoever is keeping an eye on the camera raised the alarm. All he would’ve succeeded in is blowing his one shot at escaping and invoking the wrath of the man with the stringy tie. 

No. He needs to be smart about this.

He splashes his flushed face in the sink, but the cold water offers little in the way of rejuvenation or inspiration. He’s just as tired and as stumped as he’s been for the past few hours. 

_Tony would figure it out,_ he finds himself thinking as he watches the droplets _plink plink plink_ into the basin, _Tony Stark would know what to do._ But Peter Parker doesn’t, so he half crawls, half stumbles back to the bed to conserve his energy and waits for something to come to him.

And something does, it’s just not a plan.

He sits up at the sound of the door opening again, like a Pavlovian response. Has the man realised his mistake with the collar, Peter wonders, tense. He expects anger, expects to hear the soft beep that will drain his energy once more and eliminate any chance of him making his own way out of here. But he gets neither. The man just stands there, holding another plate. This time, one covered with fruit, by the looks of things. 

“You didn’t sleep,” he says by way of greeting. “Is the bed not comfortable?”

Peter supposes he should have stopped being surprised by the polarity of this creep by now, but still, he is taken aback by the seemingly genuine concern. Also, by the fact that it’s morning already—but yes, a cursory glance at the window and he can see the grey lines of dawn creeping through the dark if he squints. Day three, then. It’s funny how time can pinch and stretch when you’re starving and being held against your will.

He turns his attention back to the man. “The bed is… fine.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good. I’m glad to hear it. Can’t have you sleeping on a poor mattress now, can we?” The man raises the plate, a light smile on his face. “Here. I brought you some breakfast.”

He’s being too nice. Peter eyes his hands with growing suspicion. He’s waiting for the rub, waiting for the next hoop— _jump through this one, now, Spider-man_ —but again, he’s surprised. The man simply places the plate on the ground and pushes it through the slot at the bottom of the door, no strings attached. 

Peter doesn’t trust it.

Still, he isn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth; he snatches up the food before the man can change his mind and retreats with it back to the relative safety of the bed. The man watches him go with something that seems almost like approval, and though it makes Peter’s skin crawl, he endures it. He won’t have to put up with it for much longer. He’ll be out of here soon if he has anything to say about it.

He curls over the plate and it’s meagre offerings on the bed, casting a glance at the clear wall when he realises he hasn’t yet heard the door closing. The man is still standing there, watching him. Peter hesitates, hand hovering over the apple he’s been given. He aches to eat, but he isn’t going to do it while he’s being leered at like the star attraction of a zoo exhibit. 

“Um,” he says, and then, despite it paining him to do so, “thanks.” He hopes that’s all the guy is waiting for—gratitude before he takes his leave, like last time. “For the food.”

“You’re welcome,” the man replies, and _doesn’t move._

Tension creeps further across Peter’s shoulders, drawing them up and back. He frowns down at the apple and banana on the plate in his lap, mouth watering, but doesn’t touch either. What does this guy _want?_ Whatever it is, Peter wishes he’d just say it and go. He can’t bear the pregnant silence; he’d rather have his solitude.

After what feels like an age, the man clears his throat. “Your webs,” he says. “Are they organic?”

Peter blows out a breath. For all the times he’s lamented running out of his webs, or had to delay a patrol to resupply, he’s relieved now to be able to answer, _no_. “I make them.”

“Make them?” The surprise is evident. More so is the disbelief, the scorn. “But you’re barely out of high school.”

Peter just shrugs. Super strength and sticking to walls is fine, but apparently a basic comprehension of chemistry is where this guy draws the line for him? Whatever. 

“Where do they come from, truthfully?”

“I told you. I make them.”

A scoff. “Really.”

“Dude, I told you,” Peter says shortly. “It’s not my fault if you don’t believe me, is it?”

The man’s eyes narrow. “Ah. Now _that’s_ what I’d expect of a highschooler. You’d do well to keep that attitude in check though, I think. I won’t stand for it, and I certainly won’t stand for it around my daughter.”

Peter bites his tongue. He burns with frustration but forces himself to keep his head. He’s not going to piss this guy off, he can’t give him any reason to reach for the remote. He does that, and any hope at escape goes up in smoke. With a slow, even exhale, he drops his eyes. “You’re right,” he grinds out, “sorry.” 

It sounds insincere to his own ears, but apparently it’s enough, because the man nods. “That’s quite all right. But I don’t expect it to happen again. Now” —he claps his hands together. Peter is so on edge that the noise makes his pulse jump— “back to the webs. A shame to not be able to have the complete Spider-man experience, but I can’t allow you to have chemicals in there, of course. You understand, right? We’ll have to think of something else.”

_Right,_ Peter thinks sourly. Can’t have him cooking up anything corrosive. Something that might eat through a steel door, say. That would sure put a dampener on little Emilia’s Christmas, wouldn’t it? 

He stares blankly at the man, refusing to dignify him with a response.

“All right, well,” the man continues after a moment. “Enjoy the food. We’ll speak again later, yes? See what we can come up with.”

Peter can’t outwardly express his thoughts about that, so he says nothing, simply watches as the man exits. And if he bites into the apple with more force than necessary once he’s alone again, well, that’s his business.

* * *

_Later_ turns out to be not that much later at all. 

The sun has risen proper by the time the man comes back, but is not yet high enough in the sky to mean lunch (though Peter’s growling stomach is content to argue on that front). 

The man doesn’t return with food though, he’s holding something else in his hands. Something soft and malleable. He pushes it through the bottom of the door and gestures for Peter to come and collect it, which he reluctantly does, trepidation rising with every step.

“I was thinking,” the man is saying, mostly to himself. “ _Webs_. What a silly place to start. The webs are hardly what make you Spider-man, are they? They’re an important part, yes, but definitely not the _most_ important. Not the most recognisable.”

Peter gets the distinct feeling he isn’t going to like where this is headed. He reaches down for the shapeless lump of cloth on the floor: red and blue with thin black lines running throughout and made of cheap synthetic material, he holds it up, lets the scratchy fabric fall through his fingers. 

“What,” he says, “is this.”

“Well, you have to look the part, don’t you? I mean, right now you could just be any person off the street. How is Emilia supposed to know you’re Spider-man if you’re not in your suit?”

Peter stares at the garish dollar store replica hanging limply from his grip. To call it a suit is downright insulting—compared to the ingenuity and design of his usual getup it’s practically a Halloween costume. It’s got poppers up the back, for christ sake. 

“I’m not wearing this.”

“No?” The man arches a brow. “I thought we had an understanding.”

Peter’s cheeks flare hot. “We—” He bites his tongue, clamping down on everything he’s desperate to say. He reminds himself of the plan, what little one he has. _Don’t give him a reason to look at the remote. Don’t piss him off._

“Yes?”

Peter exhales, measured, calming, relaxes his jaw. The unsymmetrical spider design of the ‘suit’ looks up at him from where it lays across his palm and Peter would rather burn the thing than put it on, but really, what’s one more humiliation if it helps him get out of here?

A jolt runs through him, then.

_What’s one more humiliation if it helps him get out of here?_

This right here could help him get out of here.

He has an idea.

“Right,” he says slowly. “I mean, uh, what I meant to say is I’m not wearing this...right _now_.” He gets a frown in response and clears his throat. “You want me to change into it, I'm going to need some privacy.”

The man’s expression relaxes a little, but his eyes remain somewhat suspicious. “There’s privacy in the bathroom. You can change in there.”

“Right,” Peter says. “But I mean like, _actual_ privacy.” He jerks his chin toward the camera in the corner of the ceiling. “No eyes in the sky, you know?”

“The camera doesn’t extend to the bathroom,” the man says, sounding somewhat exasperated. Peter already knows this, of course, but that isn’t the point.

“No offence, dude, but I’m just supposed to take your word on that? I mean, the kidnapping and the captivity doesn’t exactly scream trustworthy, you know? How do I know it’s not some kind of x-ray camera or something that can see through walls? I don’t know you’re not watching me in there, do I?”

“How—” The man’s face flushes a deep scarlet as he splutters, chest barrelling. “How _dare_ you. How could you even suggest that I would— that I—” He presses his lips together, nose flaring. “Fine. You have five minutes. Then the camera goes back on. And I expect you to be in the suit.”

“Ten,” Peter counters, adrenaline making him bold. “I haven’t had a shower since I got here.” But he falters when the man’s fingers twitch towards his pocket. 

“Are you playing games? I've been reasonable so far, but I could _make_ you put it on, you know.”

Peter’s stomach drops into his shoes. “No,” he says quickly. “I’m not, I just… please. I’ve been wearing the same stuff for days. All I want to do is have a shower and get clean. Then I’ll put it on, I swear.” 

He holds his breath, wide eyes locked on the man’s hand, dipped into his pocket, maybe just millimeters away from wrecking his only plan. His fingers clench tightly around the costume in his hands and he does his best to appear as earnest as possible, pulling out his last trick—something May has affectionately dubbed _The Bambi Eyes_. This guy’s a father, as horrible as that thought is. Maybe he’s got some sliver of a heart in there somewhere. “Please.”

He doesn’t know whether to be disgusted or grateful that it works.

“Five minutes,” the man repeats. It will have to do. Whether his agreement is down to stupidity or sheer arrogance—the belief that the cage is impenetrable, that the collar (or more importantly, the man operating it) is infallible—Peter doesn’t care. All he cares about is that he has his window. Five minutes. Five minutes to execute a ham-fisted plan and get the hell out of here. 

The man pauses on his way out of the door, throwing Peter a warning look that says, _no funny business. Or else._ Peter can only hope his own face betrays nothing of his intentions, and that the trembling that’s taken over his body isn’t as obvious as it feels.

The heavy slam of the door punches right through him, echoing in his ears long after. He stands in the centre of the room, watching the blinking red light on the camera, his heart beating up a storm in his chest, waiting, waiting, waiting. The second the blinking stops, he springs into action.

The shoddy suit is the first thing to go. Peter tosses it to the ground and only regrets he doesn’t have the lighter fluid to give it the treatment it so thoroughly deserves. After that, he rushes to the bathroom. The shower pipe is exactly where he left it, bent out of shape and clinging to the wall. Peter wraps his shaking hands around it once more and yanks. Again and again until sweat beads on his brow, he pulls. “C’mon,” he murmurs. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.” He doesn’t have _time._

With one last mighty tug, the bar comes free. Peter stumbles in surprise, cracking his elbow against the tiled wall. But he can’t focus on the pain; he’s down probably two minutes already, maybe three. He has to move.

By the time he’s back to the clear wall, he’s starting to feel the exertion. He’s been running on fumes for days at this point, it’s no surprise his head spins, dizzy. Still, desperation is a powerful thing. Summoning all the Spider-man he can reach, he hefts the pipe up, two handed, and swings at the glass for all he’s worth. 

It bounces off, leaving not even a scratch.

“No,” he gasps, heart sinking. “No, no, no.”

He swings again. Again. Through gulping breaths and mounting terror he hammers the pipe against the wall to no avail. How much time has passed now, he thinks frantically, too afraid to glance at the camera. How long since he left the bathroom? The guy will be back any minute and he’s done nothing but tire himself out. This isn’t going to work. He’s so screwed.

And then, a chip. Where metal meets glass, a tiny fissure opens, splintering out in an ironic likeness to a spiderweb. A laugh bubbles out of Peter at the sight, delirious and frantic. He swings the pipe into the same spot again, watching the cracks grow. His arms have long lost feeling but still he keeps going. A few more hits and the glass might actually break. A few more hits and—

“ _You_.” The exterior door swings open with a bang. Like a bull, the man dives into the airlock, rage colouring his face crimson. “You little—”

Peter stumbles back, chest heaving. And then he lurches forward, slamming the pipe against the glass with every last shred of his reserves. The glass groans under his assault, so close to giving way. The pipe is slippery in his palms but Peter doesn’t stop. He isn’t trying to make it all the way out of here anymore, he just has to make it to the man before the man makes it to the remote he’s currently fumbling about his person for.

Another hit, another. One more and the glass is bound to shatter. 

But Peter doesn’t get that far. 

He gasps. The pipe clatters to the ground and Peter follows suit, body burning as his legs collapse beneath him. A thousand tiny needles prick across his skin. The agony is all consuming, incomprehensible. His fingers claw uselessly at his neck, at the source of it all, desperate to make it stop. 

“I tried to be _nice,_ ” the man is shouting somewhere in front of him, but Peter is blind, his mouth open in a scream that gets trapped behind his teeth. “I give you a nice bed, and food, and _you,_ you ungrateful little brat, it isn’t good enough for you?”

Peter’s heart stutters and lurches with the current surging through him. _Please,_ he thinks, beyond all bravado, beyond all rationale, _please stop, please stop._ His tongue won’t obey him. All he can do is writhe on the ground like a bug that’s been stepped on, twitching, shuddering.

“If this is the way you want to play it, fine! Nothing is going to ruin this Christmas, do you hear me? You will cooperate one way or—”

A deafening crash drowns out the rest of that rant, louder than the man’s rage, louder than the screeching noise in Peter’s skull. In an instant the agonising charge ceases. Peter slumps over on the floor, lungs spasming as he drags in harsh, desperate breaths, muscles clenching and unclenching uncontrollably in the aftermath. Weakly, he raises his head. 

There’s a cloud of dust on the other side of the clear wall. The man is half crouched in the corner, though quickly straightening, and across from him...

“Stark.” The man greets the Iron Man suit that’s just crashed through the ceiling with wide eyes. He smooths back his hair, dusts down his shirt, and a tentative smile splits his face—wary, like a child caught with one hand in the cookie jar. “Uh, it’s good to see you?”

In response, the impassive red and gold helmet tilts to the side. “Mercer, isn’t it? Never a pleasure.” And then a gauntleted hand lifts, palm forward, and blasts Peter’s captor into the wall. The man— _Mercer_ crumples to the floor and doesn’t rise. 

Glowing eyes turn on Peter, then, pinning him in place. The faceplate of the suit flips up and he finds himself looking into the equally glowing eyes of Tony Stark. 

“Once,” Tony says. “Just once, I’d love for there to be a time you leave the house and _don’t_ somehow end up in imminent peril. Really, is that too much to ask? I feel like it’s not too much to ask.”

Peter lets out a wet laugh. Relief sweeps over him, a huge, heady rush that takes the last dregs of his energy out on the tide. “It’s really good to see you, Mr Stark.”

“You too, kid.” Tony’s face is grim. He raises a glowing palm. “What do you say we get you out of there, huh?”

“That sounds—“ Peter feels his voice crack. He swallows. “That sounds really good. Yeah.”

It doesn't take much; one weak blast from Tony’s repulsors and what remains of the glass wall comes crashing straight down. Just like that, Peter is free to go. He could walk right out of here, but now that he has the option he finds his legs don’t seem to want to move. With a heavy exhale, he lets his head fall into his hands right where he sits shivering on the floor. He hears the approach of footfalls, boots crunching over glass, followed by a gentle touch to his shoulder. “Pete, hey, don’t check out on me, now. You all right?” 

Peter just nods, palms pressed over his eyes. The hand on his shoulder squeezes once, and he lifts his head. Blinks. Tony is crouched in front of him, eyes full of concern. But that concern is quick to shift to cold fury when he zeros in on the device around Peter’s neck. 

Once more, Peter is struck by the destructive urge to touch it. Hide it. But he’s so damn tired. He hasn’t the energy. He just sits there, letting Tony make his observations. “I’m okay,” he tells him, though the wobble and hoarseness of his voice is sure to give him away. “He didn’t use it. Not really. Just— just at the end there. It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“Let me be the judge of that, hm?” Tony says, tipping Peter’s chin to get a look at the ring of electrical burns he can feel around his throat. Peter watches Tony’s lips thin, sees the fury in his eyes dissolve, and what replaces it is worse, somehow. Remorse. Guilt. 

That’s the thing about Tony: he blames himself, even when it makes no sense, even when it’s completely unfair. He blames himself now—probably because he’s the one who asked Peter to look out for Morgan, like the situation would be any different if he hadn’t. It’s written all over his face, and Peter can’t bear to see it. 

“Is she okay?”

Tony blinks at him. “What?”

“Morgan,” Peter says. “Is she okay?”

A frown. “Kid—“

“ _Tony_.”

Tony looks at him, brows furrowing deeper. Peter knows he must look like shit, exhausted and half-starved and brain still unscrambling from the unsanctioned electrotherapy, but he does his best to hold his gaze. Defiant. Clear. _This isn’t your fault. I chose to put it on, and I’d choose to do it again. My choice_.

A beat passes under Tony’s scrutiny, but whatever he reads in Peter’s face makes his own relax, turn soft as he lets it go. “She’s fine, kid. Shaken up and worried about you but she’ll be all right.” 

Peter exhales hard. “That’s good.” He’d gathered from the way Tony’s been acting that she must be okay, but it isn’t until now, hearing it confirmed, that he finally lets the worry he’s carried for the past few days slide off his shoulders. “That’s… yeah.” He winces. “Mr Stark, look, I'm sorry I—“

“Uh-uh, no. I’m going to stop you right there,” Tony says firmly. “What you did….” He blows out a breath. “Listen, I’m not going to thank you, because I’m pretty sure you’ve shaved about ten years off of my already tenuous lifespan with this little stunt, but…Morgan told us how it went down.” He ducks his head, makes sure he has hold of Peter’s gaze. “ _Thank you_.”

“I just wanted to keep her safe.”

“I know.” Tony’s cheek ticks up. “And you did. She’s safe and sound at the cabin with Pepper because of you, kid, and now we’re gonna get you back there, too. You’ve got an aunt and a six year old who are itching to see you. But first” —he claps Peter’s shoulder— “bolt cutters.”

“What?” Peter frowns.

“Don’t suppose there’s any lying around? To get this medieval thing off of you.”

Peter blinks. _Oh. Right._ “The um, the remote’s in his pocket,” he says. “Or it was. I don’t know if...”

“Got it. Sit tight a minute, okay?”

As if Peter needs to be told. He folds his arms over his knees, lets his head rest against them. The tinkling of glass reaches his ears as Tony sweeps through the debris on the ground, apparently having had no luck with Mercer’s person. And then: 

“Ah. Here.”

Peter lifts his head just as two short beeps ring out from the collar, followed by a mechanical click. The thing disengages, dropping from his neck like a stone, and Peter _reels_. Everything comes surging back to him all at once. It’s like being bowled over by a tidal wave—he’s helpless in its swell.

“Better?” comes Tony’s voice from above, rich and booming and too loud and too close. 

Peter flinches. “I don’t— Yeah, I— whoa.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “Ugh.”

“Too much?” Quieter this time.

“A little. Just— just give me a moment, okay?”

Peter presses his palms flat to the floor and steadies his breathing, drawing his focus inward until he can tune out the noise, begin to separate out the sensations bombarding his senses. He picks out the three heartbeats in the room, three sets of inhales and exhales, the buzzing of the lights above and the hum of A/C. He can feel every thread as it brushes against his skin, the cold seeping from the tiles below and the prickling at his neck as the burns there start to heal. And there: the familiar sensation of power thrumming through his limbs once more, the quiet strength that’s become as much a part of him as his name, or the colour of his eyes. A ghost of a smile lifts his cheek. Exhausted though he might be, he feels whole. He feels _right._

He blinks up at Tony, adjusting to the kaleidoscope of colours the world had seemed so grey without. 

“You good?” Tony murmurs.

“Yeah,” Peter says. And then another sensation wracks his body, the accompanying growl loud enough that even Tony’s unenhanced ears would struggle to miss it. Peter presses a hand over his stomach as Tony raises an eyebrow. 

“Hungry?”

“ _Starving._ ”

“I think we can fix that,” Tony says, holding a hand out to Peter, who takes it and lets himself be pulled up. “Pep’s put a no-touching-on-pain-of-death order on all the holiday food, but I’m pretty sure she’ll make an exception this once. What do you say?”

Peter glances at the room, at the collar, capable of so much misery, now lying inert on the floor. He suppresses a shudder. “Let’s get out of here.” 

“Great minds,” Tony says, hooking an arm around Peter’s back for support (which Peter is neither too proud nor too embarrassed to admit is necessary). 

The repulsors charge up, ready to take them home, but Peter puts a hand out. “Wait.” Tony glances over. Peter angles his head to the corner of the room. “What about him?” Mercer is lying slumped there still, definitely breathing, but it doesn’t seem right to just leave him. Not in his state and not after everything he’s done.

Tony shrugs. “Eh. I might have tipped off some birdman and his robot sidekick. They’re en route. Pretty sure they can handle it from here.”

And as they take to the sky, Peter can’t help but feel a little sorry what’s coming Mercer’s way.

* * *

“Peter. Peter, come look, come on.”

Peter groans, rolling over to avoid the little feet of the six year old currently bouncing up down on his bed. “Morgan,” he mumbles. “It’s—” a bleary-eyed glance at the alarm clock “—oh.” 

“ _So_ late,” Morgan finishes for him as he reads the time: eleven. “Mom said not to wake you, but I waited ages already and you have to come see!”

“Hm.” Eyes still closed, Peter tugs her down onto the mattress beside him, digging his fingers into her ribs until she giggles. “See what?”

“That’s the point, silly. You have to come down!”

Peter flops his head back onto the pillow with a put upon sigh. “Okay, okay, I’m up. Go on, lead the way.” 

Morgan scrambles off of the bed, and Peter follows with a yawn. It’s been four days since he got back from his ordeal and it feels like all he’s done in that time is sleep. Well, that and eat. Cho says it’s something to do with his metabolism being suppressed and then bouncing back in full force; May says he has a chronic case of Teenager, but she still keeps slipping snacks into his hand with worried eyes every chance she gets. Either way, he’s healing. The burns on his neck are almost gone, and his stomach barely remembers what it felt like to be empty, so full of chocolate and fancy meats and cheeses is he now. His body regains its strength every day, and every day it gets a little easier to put the whole thing behind him. 

Morgan seems to have bounced back, too, though she’s barely left his side since he’s been back. Whether it’s a result of growing up around superheroes or simply repression, Peter doesn’t know, but the child psychologist she’s booked in to talk to in the new year, just to be on the safe side, can help her figure it out.

“Close your eyes,” she says now as they descend the stairs. “No peeking, it’s a surprise.” 

Peter obeys, feeling for the edges of the steps with his toes on the way down. He hears the quiet conversation of Tony, May, and Pepper in the living room hush as the two of them reach the bottom. 

“Okay,” Morgan says, breathless with excitement. “Open.”

Peter does. 

“Whoa.”

Standing in the corner of the room is quite possibly the coolest thing Peter’s ever seen: a six foot tall wooden skeleton of a dinosaur, like one of those build-your-own sets, but on an enormous scale. Tinsel and baubles and twinkling lights of all colours adorn it from top to tail and a tiny Spider-man hangs from one of its claws. Atop its head sit two miniature figures, one hot-rod red, one cobalt blue—Iron Man and Rescue.

“It might not surprise you to hear we’ve gone off the idea of Christmas trees,” Pepper says with a gentle laugh as he stands there, mouth hanging open.

“It was Little Miss here’s idea. We are but her humble servants.” Tony ruffles a hand through Morgan’s hair. “Something she saw on TikTok, right?”

Morgan nods. Peter tears his gaze away from the dinosaur to frown at her. “Wait, you have TikTok?”

She frowns right back. “Who _doesn’t_ have TikTok?”

“Even I have TikTok, honey,” May chimes in from her perch on the end of the sofa.

Brushing off the weirdness of that, Peter turns to Tony. “This is what you’ve been doing in the garage for the past few days?” 

Tony shrugs. “Nothing says Happy Holidays like a Parasaurolophus in tinsel, now, does it.”

A laugh bursts out of Peter. He can’t help but agree.

“You all said I could choose, so I chose this,” Morgan says proudly. She looks up at Peter then, suddenly and uncharacteristically shy. “Do you like it?”

And maybe it’s the ups and downs of the past week, maybe it’s cause he’s only been awake for a few minutes, but standing there, surrounded by the most important people in his life and a giant sparkly dinosaur, Peter feels a lump rise up in his throat. 

He tugs Morgan into his side, heart blooming with warmth for her, for his family.

“Mo,” he says, “it’s perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't come at me about a six year old having TikTok -- children these days can use an iPhone before they can walk and Pepper is very diligent about the content settings.
> 
> Did I also get the idea for the holiday dinosaur off of the same app? Yes. Yes I did, and you should all go check out @mattiewex 's story time [here](https://vm.tiktok.com/ZScrebkW/) because it's very cute and I low-key (high key) want a dinosaur of my own now. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the story. Please don't forget to leave a little comment before you go!

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment and let me know what you think?
> 
> I hope everyone is having a lovely Christmas whether you celebrate or not <3


End file.
